Belichick on sacks.

Nehalem said:

If its 3rd down, there is very little difference between 3-5 on your list. Maybe 10 yards of field position at worst.

Which I think is BB point. Sacks are overrated by most people. Getting consistent pressure is more important.

Click to expand...

When would you ever be better off getting, say, 10 pressures than 10 sacks? And I don't mean an "if you get 4 interceptions" sort of an answer, because that can be countered with "if you get 4 strip sacks and fumble recoveries".

Deus Irae said:

When would you ever be better off getting, say, 10 pressures than 10 sacks? And I don't mean an "if you get 4 interceptions" sort of an answer, because that can be countered with "if you get 4 strip sacks and fumble recoveries".

Click to expand...

Just to add to this:

I think you're often better off with a lot of pressure than just a very small number of sacks without consistent pressure. You're going to be able to speed up the QB and make him question his OL and his time. But where the line is drawn is what I was talking about when I wrote "I expect he's lying, or carefully stating a minimized version of what he really means, about pressures."

Deus Irae said:

I'm sure he means it about turnovers. I expect he's lying, or carefully stating a minimized version of what he really means, about pressures. Essentially every sack is a 'bad play' for an offense, after all, and the same is not true of pressures.

Click to expand...

Yes,BUT- pressures affect the outcome of a game FAR more than sacks.
And it's not close.
Pressures are way more valuable than sacks(excluding stripsacks of course) for many reasons..
1. As BB noted, a pressure will often force a bad throw and ints. You can't get an int from a sack,obviously. Which is why the best QBs will always take a sack if they can't safely throw it away, rather than risk a turnover.
2. Consistent pressure on a qb, which includes multiple hits, will have a cumulative effect on him by late in the game. Similar to when dbs used to lay the wood on wrs over and over (ala ty law) until you could see even the best wrs flinching in the 4th quarter and dropping balls.
3. Sacks just don't happen frequently enough in a game to have much affect.
Whereas a good passrushing team might have 3-5 sacks, a great passrushing D will generate many more pressures and hits in a game than sacks. THOSE will have a great affect on the outcome.
Sacks are one of the most overrated stats in the NFL and always have been.
I thought most posters here we're knowledgeable enough to know that.
Apparently not.

Deus Irae said:

Just to add to this:

I think you're often better off with a lot of pressure than just a very small number of sacks without consistent pressure. You're going to be able to speed up the QB and make him question his OL and his time. But where the line is drawn is what I was talking about when I wrote "I expect he's lying, or carefully stating a minimized version of what he really means, about pressures."

Click to expand...

That's it in a nut shell. Create enough pressure to speed up the QBs play which would hopefully lead to sacks, interceptions, strip sacks or incompletions.

Imo, if the STs and offense can win the field position battle allowing this defense to defend 75+ drives they will get their turnovers or sacks etc...

jimnance said:

Yes,BUT- pressures affect the outcome of a game FAR more than sacks.
And it's not close.
Pressures are way more valuable than sacks(excluding stripsacks of course) for many reasons..
1. As BB noted, a pressure will often force a bad throw and ints. You can't get an int from a sack,obviously. Which is why the best QBs will always take a sack if they can't safely throw it away, rather than risk a turnover.
2. Consistent pressure on a qb, which includes multiple hits, will have a cumulative effect on him by late in the game. Similar to when dbs used to lay the wood on wrs over and over (ala ty law) until you could see even the best wrs flinching in the 4th quarter and dropping balls.
3. Sacks just don't happen frequently enough in a game to have much affect.
Whereas a good passrushing team might have 3-5 sacks, a great passrushing D will generate many more pressures and hits in a game than sacks. THOSE will have a great affect on the outcome.
Sacks are one of the most overrated stats in the NFL and always have been.
I thought most posters here we're knowledgeable enough to know that.
Apparently not.

Click to expand...

DI: Didn't see your last post which I mostly agree with.
But one thing I disagree with is your equating strip sacks and ints. Not even close.
Strip sacks are RARE. Extremely rare.
Ints are not. And almost all ints are the result of pressure on the qb. I would day getting 3 ints a game is far more valuable than getting one stripsack. And while I haven't researched the #'s, I'd bet the ratio of ints: stripsack is even greater than the 3:1 I just posted.

Fwiw in 2017 someone charted all sacks & they were drive killers. 88-90% of the time the drive stalled on that series.

BaconGrundleCandy said:

Fwiw in 2017 someone charted all sacks & they were drive killers. 88-90% of the time the drive stalled on that series.

Click to expand...

Did they also chart all pressures and qb hits? My guess is the drive killing % would be as high or higher. More importantly, the pressures result in a LOT more points on the board for the team that creates them. Not just talking pick6's but ints which result in scoring drives. I'm not a stat geek but I can guarantee if someone took the time to do an in-depth study, they'd find pressures and hits resulted in far more points for the team generating them or far fewer points for the offense giving them up.

jimnance said:

Yes,BUT- pressures affect the outcome of a game FAR more than sacks.
And it's not close.
Pressures are way more valuable than sacks(excluding stripsacks of course) for many reasons..
1. As BB noted, a pressure will often force a bad throw and ints. You can't get an int from a sack,obviously. Which is why the best QBs will always take a sack if they can't safely throw it away, rather than risk a turnover.
2. Consistent pressure on a qb, which includes multiple hits, will have a cumulative effect on him by late in the game. Similar to when dbs used to lay the wood on wrs over and over (ala ty law) until you could see even the best wrs flinching in the 4th quarter and dropping balls.
3. Sacks just don't happen frequently enough in a game to have much affect.
Whereas a good passrushing team might have 3-5 sacks, a great passrushing D will generate many more pressures and hits in a game than sacks. THOSE will have a great affect on the outcome.
Sacks are one of the most overrated stats in the NFL and always have been.
I thought most posters here we're knowledgeable enough to know that.
Apparently not.

Click to expand...

jimnance said:

DI: Didn't see your last post which I mostly agree with.
But one thing I disagree with is your equating strip sacks and ints. Not even close.
Strip sacks are RARE. Extremely rare.
Ints are not. And almost all ints are the result of pressure on the qb. I would day getting 3 ints a game is far more valuable than getting one stripsack. And while I haven't researched the #'s, I'd bet the ratio of ints: stripsack is even greater than the 3:1 I just posted.

Click to expand...

I'd suggest that you need to re-think these above posts, and to come up with a more thought out response, so that we can address any disagreements in a logical manner (not meant to be insulting, but to have a more focused discussion). But, before we get there, the notion that I can't equate a sack-fumble-recovery with an interception is ludicrous on its face.

jimnance said:

DI: Didn't see your last post which I mostly agree with.
But one thing I disagree with is your equating strip sacks and ints. Not even close.
Strip sacks are RARE. Extremely rare.
Ints are not. And almost all ints are the result of pressure on the qb. I would day getting 3 ints a game is far more valuable than getting one stripsack. And while I haven't researched the #'s, I'd bet the ratio of ints: stripsack is even greater than the 3:1 I just posted.

Click to expand...

QBs seem to throw between 1.5 to 2.5 INTs for every fumble.

Source: I just cherry picked a few players from the career fumble leader list:

NFL Fumbles Career Leaders | Pro-Football-Reference.com

If you guess that 75% of QB fumbles are from strip sacks (pure guess on my part) then your ratio of 3:1 is on the high end for all QBs, but certainly a reasonable estimate.

[QUOTE="Deus Irae, post: 5443102, member: 5686" I mean, the notion that I can't equate a sack-fumble-recovery with an interception is ludicrous on its face.[/QUOTE]

If you reread my posts, you'll see I was clearly NOT doing that.
Of course a sack fumble recovery and int are equal.
But stripsack are rare. Ints are not. So there's no comparison. There are at least 3x as many ints as stripsack and probably a lot more. I'm not going to look it up. Pressures and hits are more important than sacks for all the reasons I posted but mostly because the happen on much greater volume.

jimnance said:

If you reread my posts, you'll see I was clearly NOT doing that.
Of course a sack fumble recovery and int are equal.
But stripsack are rare. Ints are not. So there's no comparison. There are at least 3x as many ints as stripsack and probably a lot more. I'm not going to look it up. Pressures and hits are more important than sacks for all the reasons I posted but mostly because the happen on much greater volume.

Click to expand...

But you're making an argument that doesn't consistently hold water, which is the point. Take a look at Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady on these, for example, just to hearken back to a thread on the front page right now, or take a look at Cousins, to point to the next opposing QB.


P.S. I hope you found my edit from above. My apologies if my post (#29) initially came off as dismissive. I was actually trying to go in the opposite direction, but I did a crappy job of wording the post.

Hmm... I hope he hasn’t been telling them to pressure the QB but don’t sack him.

Don't care about sacks. 3 and outs are the ticket for me!

Here's the thing. Sacks are like WR's. They are important facets in any game, but are NEVER the main reason that determines winning or losing.

I call it the "individualization of football". While football still remains the ultimate team game, for the last few decades it has been marketed to us as a game of individuals. Brady, vs Manning, instead of the Pats vs the Colts.

WR's are the epitome of this individualization of the game. Even before the rule changes that brought us a flag football version of the pro game, WR's have long been the most replaceable of players.

The Pats have been successful for DECADES despite rarely spending for elite WR's when having "merely" good ones have successfully sufficed.

All you have to do is look at the Jags vs the Pats. Who has the most "star" players. It's not even close. Which is the better TEAM.....and it's not even close.

All that being said, I think Bill underestimates the value of the sack, just a bit. I'm guessing here, but I would think that if a team gets their QB sacked, they are FAR more likely to have to punt the ball after that sack.

And that being said ( ), I'm guessing that picking up first downs on long yardage plays in THIS offensive environment is a LOT easier than it was just a decade ago.

The Patriots are 8th in pressure rate and 30th in sacks.

RotoPass - Pressure Rate | Football Outsiders

@Deus Irae appears to be right about sack fumbles. It looks like Belichick isn't giving us the whole picture here. There's a WAY higher chance of fumbling on a sack than throwing an interception due to pressure, if I'm reading these right.

Advanced Football Analytics (formerly Advanced NFL Stats): Fumble Rates by Play Type



It's okay, PatsFans family. You can admit that Saint Belichick isn't always right, or forthcoming, and still be a big fan of the coach and the team.

Deus Irae said:

But you're making an argument that doesn't consistently hold water, which is the point. Take a look at Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady on these, for example, just to hearken back to a thread on the front page right now, or take a look at Cousins, to point to the next opposing QB.


P.S. I hope you found my edit from above. My apologies if my post (#29) initially came off as dismissive. I was actually trying to go in the opposite direction, but I did a crappy job of wording the post.

Click to expand...

Looking back on all your posts, I think we were arguing about 2 different things. I was never arguing value of ONE sack vs. ONE pressure. Neither was BB. I was only arguing on a game by game basis, there are far more pressures and hits than there are sacks, ERGO, pressures/hits have a greater impact on any given game than sacks do. It's a no-brainer.
Not every team that generates a lot of pressures/hits, has a lot of sacks and vice versa.
If someone was arguing about just ONE sack vs. just ONE pressure then of course I'd rather have the sack. But that's not the argument here. The argument was simply: what has more value in one game- pressures or sacks? Nobrainer

reamer said:

@Deus Irae appears to be right about sack fumbles. It looks like Belichick isn't giving us the whole picture here. There's a WAY higher chance of fumbling on a sack than throwing an interception due to pressure, if I'm reading these right.

Advanced Football Analytics (formerly Advanced NFL Stats): Fumble Rates by Play Type



It's okay, PatsFans family. You can admit that Saint Belichick isn't always right, or forthcoming, and still be a big fan of the coach and the team.

Click to expand...

No you're not reading it right.
Of course there's a greater chance of a fumble from a sack than an int from a pressure. Duh!
But that's not what BB was referring to and neither was I.
What we were referring to is that in an average NFL game, there are manyany more pressures and qb hits than there are sacks. There arealso FAR more ints in a game,in a season,than stripsacks.
So because of the sheer greater volume of pressures over sacks,they have a much greater impact than sacks.
BB was/is right. I was/am right. Deus was/is wrong. ( Although I think he was arguing about something totally different than either BB or myself.)

I hope they all happened this weekend. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 & 10 in no particular order.